Playing with Fire
by Fido the Finch
Summary: Fang stared, mouth suddenly having gone dry. Iggy, ever so careful with his words, said, "It's a chick!" (The firefighting AU meetcute nobody asked for)


Three in the morning.

Three in the morning, and all three hundred students in the West dorm were half-crawling down the dark, un-air-conditioned stairways to evacuate the building.

Iggy hissed behind Fang when he knocked his hip into the stairway railing. "Fang, dude, this isn't worth it. Let's go back."

In response, Fang grabbed his blind roommate's hands and put them on his shoulders so he wouldn't get lost in the shuffle. "We'll burn."

"Bull. We both know it was some freshman microwaving popcorn."

Fang shrugged, knowing Iggy could feel it. "We'll be fined."

"Will it cost more than my sleep debt?"

One of the other students—Fang met him at freshman initiation and the other kid had introduced himself as the Gasman—( _freshmen, right?_ )—overheard and added, "I heard that last year Second-Floor-Sam slept through a fire drill and the RD fined him five hundred dollars."

Iggy gave a low whistle. "Lead the way, Nicky."

They lived on the third of six floors, so by the time they filed out the emergency exits there was still enough room on the lawn to push through the crowd of half-asleep, pajama-clad zombies and find their own pocket of space. The three of them ended up at the edge of the crowd, relatively close to the road. They turned to watch the building, some part of them hoping it would burn. (Well, Iggy was facing the general direction at least.)

Gazzy had stuck around, scuffing his bare feet in the dewy grass. "Is it true the building should collapse after five minutes?"

Fang shrugged. "One way to find out."

Gazzy's eyes went wide, and Iggy snorted. "No, you're thinking of old Jefferson." He waited until he knew Gazzy would be calm before adding, "This one collapses in three."

Iggy and Fang high-fived. Gazzy choked.

After another minute, sirens started to get closer. Iggy had to raise his voice to ask, "Are those the firetrucks?"

Gazzy started to nod, then realized what he was doing and answered out loud, "Yeah."

The trucks stopped a little further up the road than they were standing, but they had a good view of the crew as they poured out and into the building. The crowd of people was pushed back and out of the way. Apparently if the building actually caught on fire—which everyone knew wasn't going to happen—they were within the toasting range.

During the hubbub of people moving, Iggy leaned in again. "You'll tell me if they're hot, right?"

"The fire?"

Iggy punched him in the shoulder. "The firefighters." He rolled his eyes. "You're such a smartass."

Fang grinned, even though he knew Iggy couldn't see it. He has been roommates with Iggy since freshman year, and he's known Iggy's taste in men since about a month after that, when he found a very drunk roommate gushing about some upperclassman's deep voice.

"Yeah," Fang answered. He intentionally let Iggy decide what he meant by it. "They're all wearing gear."

"And?"

"It's hard to tell. Big jackets. Big pants. Hats."

Iggy huffed in frustration. "You're terrible at this."

Fang shrugged. "I'm not gay?"

The fire alarm was finally switched off, to the cheers of the crowd. Firemen started to file out of the building. One of them flipped up their face shield just enough to talk to the Resident Director. The director searched the crowd, and pointed straight at them.

"Trouble," Fang warned.

Gazzy's gaze shot toward where he saw Fang looking. The firefighter was headed their way. He blanched. "Crap. Crap crap crap."

He started to back away, but Iggy got a hold of his night shirt and yanked him back. "I'm guessing the RD is coming for us?"

"A firefighter."

Iggy's grin took a sharp edge to it, and he leaned down on Gazzy's shoulder. "Why, good sir, would you be so afraid of a firefighter?"

Gazzy swallowed. Audibly. "I. . . uh. . . "

"Evening, boys." Gazzy was saved from answering by the firefighter's arrival. Up close, the height difference was more clear—Fang had at least a few inches over the public servant—and the face shield was still obscuring half of the face. Something seemed off about the voice, though. . .

As he was thinking it, the firefighter reached up and lifted off the hat and the face shield, revealing shoulder-length brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. "I'm looking for a Nathan Johnson?"

Fang stared, mouth suddenly having gone dry. Iggy, ever so careful with his words, said, "It's a chick!"

The firefighter—Maxine, her badge said—shot Iggy a look that was, fortunately, lost on him. "Are you Nathan?"

Iggy shook his head once, sharply.

The Gasman squeaked. "Hi, Max."

She smirked before turning to the Gasman. "Gazzy. Long time, no see."

Gazzy's face was turning a violent shade of red. "Yeah. I started college this year."

"Classes not too hard?" Gazzy shook his head. "I didn't think so, if you still had time to build something like this." She held up some kind of duct-taped contraption, complete with scorch marks. "I didn't recognize the name but I thought this looked familiar."

Iggy found his voice again. "Gasman is the one to cause the fire?"

Gazzy tried to step out of Iggy's grip. He was unsuccessful. "I was bored?"

Fang blinked hard. "You're not a dude." And immediately regretted it.

Max's professionalism was clearly being strained. "You know, I thought college students were supposed to be smart."

Iggy stepped in to his rescue. "I think what my friend meant was, you two know each other?"

Max didn't look like she was about to let Fang off the hook, but her face softened a little. A heavily-gloved hand ruffled Gazzy's hair. "This kid almost burned down his high school chemistry lab last year. Was trying to make a bomb."

Gazzy scoffed, pushing away Max's hand. "A _stink_ bomb."

Max pointed to the contraption she was holding. "And what's this supposed to be? An alarm clock?"

Gazzy ducked his chin down. "A firework. It wasn't supposed to go off." He looked up again, eyes wide. "Please don't tell anyone!"

Max rolled her shoulders back in an exaggerated shrug. "As far as the RD knows, it was just burnt popcorn." Her eyes narrowed. "But I don't want to find anything like this again, capiche?"

Gazzy sagged with relief. "Capache."

To Fang's and Iggy's horror, Max handed the 'firework' back to Gazzy. "Get rid of it."

Gazzy nodded and disappeared toward the parking lot, undoubtedly looking for somewhere else to stash his project.

"You're letting him keep it?" Iggy asked.

Max cracked a genuine grin. "He's going to build more either way. He just needs to be more careful next time."

Fang cleared his throat, trying to make words work again. It had its intended effect in that it got Max's attention, but it did nothing to help resurrect his English. So he went with basic stuff. "I'm Nick—call me Fang. This is James."

"My friends call me Iggy."

Max shook both of their hands, an oddly formal greeting for the conversation they'd been having. "I'm Maxine; Max for short. A _girl_ ," she tacked on, a playful grin in her expression.

Fang felt his face heating, looking at her eyes and the slight freckles across the bridge of her nose. "Yeah."

Iggy cursed. "Dude, I've got a quiz tomorrow."

"We should go," Fang replied, only half paying attention. Max was giving him a funny look. He almost wanted to say it was an interested one. He couldn't find it in himself to move his feet.

One of the firefighters yelled at Max from the truck. Max turned and waved back, signaling she was on her way. She looked back at Fang and Iggy and said, "With that kid living in the same dorm, I'll probably see you around."

Fang could swear she winked at him.

Then she was gone, swallowed by the giant truck and pulling away from the rapidly-emptying lawn.

"She sounded hot," Iggy remarked slyly.

Fang swallowed. "Beautiful."


End file.
